Playing the Name Game of Endorsements

My Dear Readers,

I have a book, written with my friend Matt Mikalatos, that hits the shelves October 17. The process of seeking endorsements – the blurbs on the back, inside, and sometimes on the cover – began a few weeks ago. A PDF of our edited but not typeset manuscript was sent/is being sent to leaders in the Church – progressives, conservatives, authors, pastors, organizational leaders, etc. Because our book, Loving Disagreement: Fighting For Community Through the Fruit of the Spirit, is about engaging in disagreements we are intentionally looking for people with a variety of theological and political views, representing the diversity of the Church. I suspect even I may be surprised at the endorsements because hopefully some will come from people I disagree with but believe in book. 

Recently the topic of book endorsements, particularly within Christian publishing, has come under scrutiny because of a soon-to-be published book containing dangerous theology and uncomfortably weird analogies was endorsed by several prominent authors and pastors. Their endorsements raised questions about those blurbs and the process of vetting both the book and the blurb.

I’ve written elsewhere about Christian publishing – how that process played out for me and how it could play out for other aspiring authors. I thought I’d add my one cent here about the game of endorsements.

It’s a business and a ministry and a business

Please remember that Christian publishing is still a business. Even if the publisher is the publishing arm of a non-profit, book publishing is a business. 

So when it comes to endorsements I have found it complicated. As an Asian American female Christian author, I am often asked if I would read a manuscript and offer an endorsement. When I first started down this road of Christian publishing almost 20 years ago, Twitter + IG did not exist. Smart phones did not exist. But that did not mean Christian authors weren’t building platforms. They were blogging and building email lists. They were speaking at conferences that kept getting bigger with more stage production and building email lists. So when five completely unknown Asian American women were getting ready to send More Than Serving Tea out into the world, we were asked to think about prominent Asian American church leaders and academics to give our book credibility and possibly connect us to more readers and networks.

In this recent situation I have been reading a lot of comments about how endorsements are an awful game and authors and readers shouldn’t play. I’m not sure how I can fully divest myself from the game when I am months away from publishing another book and waiting to hear from the more than two dozen folks we have reached out to for endorsements. I’m not sure how as a reader I can fully divest myself from not only turning to friends for recommendations but also looking at endorsements to see if others I respect have signed off on a book I’m thinking about reading. I’m not going to only trust the librarians’ or a pastor’s recommendations if the librarian or pastor doesn’t read books written by authors of color. As a reader, I look for endorsements from other authors and leaders of color, particularly women of color. 

But as an author, I have learned that the game is also networking. Don’t roll your eyes. We all do it. How else do you make friends? How do you find out about summer camps for your kids or possible job leads when you’ve had it with your current boss? How do you find a church in a new community? You lean into your network. And as an Asian American female author, my network and my own platform carry a different weight and carry me.

Let Me Explain and Ask a Few Questions

I know that many of you started following me back in 2016 after authors like Scot McKnight and Rachel Held Evans blurbed about More Than Serving Tea on their own blogs. Now I have no idea if those blog posts generated sales, but for me as an author their posts opened up networks. Scot and Rachel became  people I considered friends and allies. Scot taught me about honoraria and how to ask for what I deserved and needed. Rachel connected me to possible agents and gave an endorsement for my book Raise Your Voice. That came about as a result of the game.

But what I have found is that when I, as an Asian American female author, endorse a white author’s book I am offering a level of credibility. In the crudest way possible, my endorsement can be a stamp of Asian American approval. I have consistently turned down requests for endorsement from white authors I do not know. My priority is to endorse women of color, especially new authors, because the game wasn’t developed with us in mind. That is how I play the game. That is how I have chosen to leverage the little bit of influence and power I have and how I manage my time. 

I am also relying on my network of authors of color and white authors I know and trust to be the first ones I ask for an endorsement. Why? I respect them. Their words carry weight and influence. As an author I believe in my work and I want as many reader to buy and read my books. I will always write, but writing a book? That’s a different beast than writing for myself and for the love of my craft. Personally, I want my books to sell and while an endorsement alone doesn’t sell books, it is a stamp of credibility. I don’t know what other ways an author has to signal to potential readers that our words are worth a chance. What draws you into a book? A beautiful cover? A provocative title? Do you read the endorsements? If so, why? If not, why not? Short of reading the book, what helps you, My Dear Readers, decide to buy and read a book?

And one day I may make a mistake. One day my beliefs may change (many of my beliefs have changed since my first book). One day the beliefs of an author whose book I endorsed may change. I’m not sure how to handle that except to say that is part of the risk we authors take when we send our words out into the world. They are frozen in time and do not move and shift with us, which is why we keep writing and we keep reading.

Back to the Game

Some folks have commented that endorsements can be bought. No one has ever tried to buy my endorsement, and I have never tried to buy an endorsement. I can’t imagine making enough money off of a book contract to give some of it away to buy two sentences, but I can see how that might happen. While many Christian authors have gone the way of Substack and other platforms, there was and might still be folks who sell posts on their blogs and platforms. Some of the “guest posts” on other spaces might be paid for, and you will never know. So if we are going to interrogate endorsements, and I think it’s fair, let’s look at it all, including the platforms. Again, I’ve never charged anyone for a mention of their book or for the chance to post on my blog. But I know for a fact there are Christian authors who “share” their platforms for a price. 

Endorsements when done in a perfect world are written after the book is read and some of the outrage in this current situation involving a book about sexuality and the church is that endorsers may not have read the entire book. That is not my personal practice and I suspect many of us will make sure we spend even more time reading manuscripts before we write our endorsements, but I do have a request of you, My Dear Readers. Please consider how you also play into this game with your reviews (or lack of) and words on the interwebs. Did you love the book? Please tweet about it. Review it on Goodreads. Post a photo of the book with your pet. Ask your library to carry the book and then go check it out.

I’m not sure what if anything will change with endorsements, but I want to remind all of us that Christian publishing is still a business.

The cover. I love it.

 

 

Before the Book Launch: (The First) Announcement

Don’t let this fool you. This photo was taken on the day I wrote this post.

Dear Readers,

I have an announcement. No, I am not pregnant.

I signed a contract. To write. A book. All by myself but not truly alone because we know writing is both a solitary and simultaneously communal act, with the prayers, support, and stories of my family and all of you!!!

This has been a 10-year journey – 10 years since “More Than Serving Tea” was published and the awkward beginnings of blogging. It also has been a decades-long journey as a former journalist who has journals dating back to 2nd grade. (“Dear Diary, I had a hot dog for lunch. It was a good day.”)

The book is about finding your voice and stewarding your influence well in a world that competes for our attention and energy. It’s about speaking up and speaking out honestly, truthfully, boldly. It’s not about building a platform. It’s about God’s invitation to all of us to discover how we are uniquely created in God’s image – imago Dei – and to live into that fully, which for me today has meant two video conference calls dressed professionally from waist up while sitting cross-legged in yoga pants and Minion socks with a sick teenager a room away texting me about nausea and the need for club soda.

Thank you for reading, for cheering me on, for commenting, and for sharing my words, my Dear Readers. I hope you will stick around for this part of the ride!!

Before the Book Launch Comes a Million Waves of Doubt

  This is a rushed blog post because I don’t want it to run tomorrow. You know. April Fool’s. Or is it Fools’? Whatever. I don’t want to publish something tomorrow because publishing and getting a book published is no joke.

There are many avenues to self-publishing available and viable to those who choose that route. I am actually a co-author of a devotional that was self-published, and you are more than welcome to let me know if you are interested in buying a copy God’s Graffiti Devotional from me.

But the other book I co-authored with four other amazing women just entered its 8th printing. More Than Serving Tea is not going to be a NY Times best seller, though IMHO has more wisdom in it that some of the self-help stuff that makes that list, but as I posted a photo celebrating the fact that the book is still in print I was engaged in a short FB conversation with a friend about the lack of writers of color in the recent InterVarsity Press catalogue – the same publishing house that took a risk on and supported More Than Serving Tea.

The road to getting a book published is longer for some than others, and it is connected to privilege as much as it is connected to actual writing talent. It drives me berserkoid when Christian authors say things like, “God opened the door” because it’s weird how many more doors are opened for white authors. Just sayin’. I’m pretty sure God isn’t sitting in heaven waiting for more authors of color to pray, “Lord, open those publishing doors for me.” I am not saying that all white authors have those connections. #notallwhiteauthors I am saying that Christian publishers are still set up within the cultural norms that were established for and by white authors and readers and for their success and reading pleasure.

This post isn’t about all that needs to happen to dismantle that mess. I can’t do that in one post just like we can’t dismantle white supremacy in one post.

This post is about full disclosure, authenticity, honesty, vulnerability so that you, my truly dear readers and folks joining me on this ride, get the whole story, which is more than a lovely IG post celebrating the 8th printing of a book that came out 10 years ago. In the publishing world that isn’t even a drop in the bucket. But I contributed to that drop and it took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.

So I’m writing this post to share with you a secret I have been keeping because this will help people who are dreaming to keep dreaming, others to start dreaming, and maybe others to support us dreamers.

I have a book proposal.

It’s public now. Usually authors don’t share that part. We share the reprint notices. We post photos of our contracts. We invite you to be a part of the launch team. I’m here to invite you into one of the scariest parts: rejection. I just sent the FOURTH version of my proposal to my editor today, the same day I got the 8th printing notice. I won’t lie. I’m hoping that was a good omen. But I won’t lie. I didn’t think I’d be on my fourth version of a proposal when I started the first version in OCTOBER. At this rate, my daughter will graduate from college before I publish another book. Before the launch is a million waves of doubt. Do I have enough for an entire book? Will I get a contract? Will anyone read the book? Will anyone actually LIKE the book?

One of the reasons this female author of color hasn’t been published again is because I am afraid. Rejection is part of the process, and I don’t know anyone who enjoys repeated rejection. Writing and all other art requires a degree of confidence, ambition, humility, and a sense of humor. It requires more things, but those were the first things that come up for me. As a soon-to-be graduating college student applying for reporting jobs, I kept my rejection letters on the apartment refrigerator numbered and complete with corrections in red ink. That was my sense of humor. But I kept applying and that is where confidence, ambition, and humility come together. You keep trying even though it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. You keep writing because you did get some good feedback. You write because that is what you know to do.

So I’m sharing the secret of my yet-to-be-accepted book proposal to invite more of you into this journey, so that more of us can silence the fear of rejection a little bit, just enough to sit down and write and put together a proposal that has to be revised. I’m letting you know that I’m trying because I think it’s in my DNA, the way God created me, and I’m not going to wait as if the immaculate conception could take book contract form. It’s not glamorous. It’s rather tedious. It’s not waiting for inspiration to hit. It’s sitting at a blank screen day after day after day.

I’m letting you know because some of you need to know you are not alone. Tomorrow is another day in front of a blank screen, and we will love most minutes of it.

How To Build Your Platform. A Gentle Warning.

Isn't this what comes to mind when you hear people talking about platforms? No? What's wrong with you?

Isn’t this what comes to mind when you hear people talking about platforms? No? What’s wrong with you? These are my favorite, but I do wish I had bought both patterns of the same shoe because these are so comfy.

 

Now that I have your attention…

I’m not exactly sure on how to build a platform, and by platform I do not mean shoes or a stage. I know shoes, but I am not a carpenter. I am talking about social media platforms, and there actually are experts out there. It’s a thing. Just google it. The experts talk about platform, branding (which I associate with advertising and cattle, but that is another topic for another day), messaging, consistency, etc. I occasionally read about building a platform because I have promised a certain editor or two book proposals multiple times, and book proposals in today’s market require some knowledge or understanding of platform. The experts KNOW. I’m not sure but I have some thoughts and warnings.

  1. Just because you have traffic doesn’t mean you’re a good writer. Deep down we all get a rush knowing the traffic on your blog ticked up or a tweet was retweeted, etc. Admit it. If you can’t admit it, you’re not being honest. And if you’re not being honest, then you will never be able to handle reality which is traffic does not equal your best content. My highest traffic posts involved some megachurch pastor who never communicated with me personally. Those posts were not my best content. Those posts were not examples of my best writing. IF you are just looking to increase traffic write about sex, Game of Thrones, megachurch pastors, or sex.
  2. Just because you don’t have traffic doesn’t mean you’re bad writer. Some of my best posts are the ones that sit there and are read quietly by my dear readers, who don’t number in the thousands but more in the hundreds. In fact, yesterday there were only 42 readers on this blog. I have less than 300 people following my blog.
  3. When you write from your heart, pray while you write, edit, and before you hit “publish”. And keep praying. Much of what I write about hits at the intersection of gender, faith, race, and ethnicity. It’s not everyone’s “thing” but it is the thing that God has compelled me to write and speak about. That intersection is what catches my heart and keeps me up at night because it affects the way I heard and hear God. It also makes people upset, angry, defensive. Racism and sexism are touchy subjects amongst the church-going crowd. If you are writing to build a platform, I humbly suggest you reconsider your motives. Writing for an audience is soul-bearing work. It’s work. It’s a discipline. Just like praying.
  4. Engage with your readers not your critics. My dear readers are thoughtful. They respond with open hearts and honest questions. Writers should engage with their readers. However, when my stats go through the roof because I’ve written a controversial post or about something that became a controversy I get crazy comments and crazier personal messages that demand I repent, retract, kowtow, etc. Am I judging those commenters? Yes. Those commenters usually are not regular readers and their comment is a critique. I let my readers respond to them. That’s right. Let your readers engage with your critics. If your readers are like mine they are thoughtful and sharp, and they will call out a troll when they see one.
  5. If you are serious about building your platform you have to be committed to writing consistently. This is where I offer advice I have heard but have not taken. I am not building my platform. I write when I want to write because this isn’t my livelihood nor is “writer” my primary vocation. However, I have been putting much more thought into being a better, more consistent blogger for my own development as a writer and for my readers who deserve more than a post here and there every few weeks.

For my fellow writer/speaker friends and readers out there, what have you learned about building your platform? What words of advice, warning, and encouragement can you give?

 

 

She’s a Writer, a Speaker, a Red Wine & Coffee Drinker

She’s me. I’m going through my mid-life crisis early because I  have always been a bit of an over-achiever. I figure why wait if I can already identify some of my angst, right? My oldest child is getting ready to #flymysweet and head off to New York, not to follow her bliss but to study the one thing that makes studying everything else tolerable. There are so many mixed emotions, and I’ll eventually sort through them bit by bit to write about them, but the mess of emotions is why I’m writing this post. I’m not leaving my family, buying a new car, getting a boob job, piercing my fill-in-the-blank, or taking up a new hobby. (I may, however, get my eyebrows tattooed.) I am trying to carve out some space, time, silence, planned activity and nothing – a luxury, I know. Some call it a sabbatical. Honestly it’s my mid-life crisis. Seventeen years in ministry as a wife, a mom, and then a writer and speaker, always a coffee drinker and then finally a palate that could appreciate being a wine drinker, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Please tell me you can relate. Please tell me that there have been days when you looked at your schedule, your desk, your kitchen, your gym, your pile of laundry, your spouse, your children, your church, your boss, your inbox, your text messages, your journal, your car keys, your reflection in the mirror after spending the morning working from home in your pajamas and robe and thought, “What the hell am I doing?” That’s where I am. There are no doubts about my skills, talents, gifts, passions, pet peeves, and weaknesses, but there is a restlessness I have not attended to. And I’m actually afraid to ask God what I’m supposed to do about all of this because I actually believe if I ask God He is going to answer and sometimes I don’t like the answers. I don’t like to be that honest because you may read my funny, insightful, vulnerable posts, but you haven’t heard my prayers. Prayers are honest, raw, ugly, broken, desperate, and hopeful. We don’t always get what we want, which is what I naively and incorrectly interpreted a Christian life to be. Ask and you shall receive. Knock and the door will be open. When life closes a door, God opens a window or something like that. Sure. Ask and you might receive an “Oh, no.” and the door might open but not for you. And that window is “open” because someone threw a rock through it so going through means getting cut. See. I’m stuck. But over dinner and drinks to celebrate 21 years of marriage, my husband asked me if I could do anything what would I do. It was the closest thing to a prayer about myself since this whole launching a kid to college and ushering my older son into high school sent me to my knees about them and my parenting. This was about dreaming, not for them but for myself. There is an inherent danger in doing that because there are some cultural norms not often discussed in polite company. My unscientific research has shown that men can get away with more self-promotion than women, and even men and women may accept self-promotion more in men than in women. And Asian Americans by unspoken rule do not believe in self-promotion, unless you are a man, which means you can get away with it more. It’s not always true, but it is more often than not the case. An elder at another church once reprimanded me for talking too much about myself when talking about my work and ministry. Huh? And as we approach Mother’s Day let us not forget that we thank our mothers because of their sacrifice and unselfishness, which sometimes flies in the face of having aspirations, goals, and interests that are not some how connected to the lives we birthed, adopted, fostered, and mentored. I don’t buy greeting cards, but I’m going to guess that a lot of cards thank moms for what they did for us. Which is why I want to encourage my mom friends and women friends, my sisters, and my brothers to name three things about yourself and dream a little. These words don’t define you, limit you, label you, etc. It’s just a start. And if you’re game, pray those ugly, honest, hopeful prayers to God to guide your way. Ask your community to confirm, affirm, redirect. Just three things. She’s a writer, a speaker, a coffee drinker. That’s me. It’s not all of me, but it’s start. Who are you?

A dear friend gave this to me just because it was perfect in so many ways. It's good to have friends who know you, can keep things real, keep you humble and honest, and make you laugh.

A dear friend gave this to me just because it was perfect in so many ways. It’s good to have friends who know you, can keep things real, keep you humble and honest, and make you laugh.

 

Did You Grow Up to Be What You Wanted to Be?

When I grow up I want to be a….

What did you want to be?

When I was much younger I wanted to be a teacher. And then I wanted to be a journalist. And then I wanted to be a section editor of a major metropolitan newspaper and win the Pulitzer Prize.

Somewhere along the way I figured out that I’m still growing up, even as a 40-something mother of three, wife of one, and there are many things I want to be when I grow up.

In the meantime, I am, among many other things:

  • a culture, management & leadership consultant and trainer
  • a public speaker
  • a writer, blogger, author

Friday I will be spending the day at Corban’s middle school for career day as a presenter. I don’t remember attending a Career Day at school as a child, but I do remember how I felt when Ms. Johnson, my high school English teacher, encouraged me to rework some of my poetry because she saw “potential”. I remember Mrs. Umlauf encouraging me to spend a week of my summer at journalism camp and learn the art of sports writing because she believed in me. I remember Mr. Studt asking me why I was wasting time on the poms squad when I could try out for the speech team. (I did both, so there.)

I also had parents who believed in me. They sat me down and told me that I shouldn’t pick one school over another just because of the financial aid package. They wanted to me chase the dream (Little did I know they also had a another dream of me writing for awhile, getting that out of my system and then going to law school. It was like a Korean drama/Inception kind of dream.)

I stopped and took a detour between “journalist” and “section editor”.

So help a presenter out:

What did you think you wanted to be/do when you grew up? And are you doing it? Why or why not? If you are, is it what you thought it would be? If you aren’t, what are you doing and how the heck did you get there?

And for those of us still growing up: What do you want to be when you grow up?

What Will the Terrible Twos Look Like?

Today marks two years since I jumped solo to start blogging here on WordPress. It has been…interesting. 😉

I started just before my youngest child entered first grade, which for me meant the end of the tunnel (one of many parenting tunnels). For those of you who are unfamiliar with that tunnel it starts the moment you give birth. Completely and utterly surprised, baffled and overwhelmed by the love and fear you have of raising said child takes over a part of your heart and soul and mind (the body part got taken over the second you got pregnant). For me the light at the end of the tunnel was repeating the birth cycle two more times realizing that until the youngest entered full-day school I would always have a little person near by on days I wasn’t working outside of the home.

It was no coincidence that as several more hours of the day opened up that I jumped back into the silence and solitude of writing.

There are few interests that have been a continuous thread in my life, and writing has been one of them. Diaries with little brass locks, lined journals, blank-page sketch books and then clips and tear sheets documenting life and lives have always been a part of me though there was little room for personal reflection and pontificating during the moments my infants raced into childhood and now, for the oldest, to the brink of adulthood. Which is why the blog seemed to fit with my youngest entering full-day school. He was taking a big step forward as was I. I just didn’t get a cool new backpack and a magic penny to get me through the day.

So, happy birthday to More Than Serving Tea and many thanks to all of you who have made what happens in silence and solitude into a space we can hear, learn, encourage and, I hope, bless one another.

Just watch out. More Than Serving Tea is now two….

Is This Worth a Response?

May was a crazy month, and June caught me by surprise. Lots of things going on with the kids and with me personally, including taking a breather from writing as I tried to regain some sense of center.

And then the following comment arrived on a fairly old blog post of mine just begging for a snarky response from me:

From DoubleStandard-

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IS WRONG WITH YOU RACIST PEOPLE

THE FACT THAT A WHITE OR ENGLISH SPEAKERS CAN SIT THERE AND HAVE SOME TROUBLE WITH READING DIFFERENT AND VERY VERY VERY VERY!!!!!!!!!!!!! HARD LANAUGES AND SAY IT WRONG AND OU CALL THAT RACIST WHAT IF NON ENGLISH PEOPLE SAY ENGLISH WORDS WRONG

IS THAT RACIST NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HELL IT IS

ITS CUTE AND WE “HAVE TO RESPECT” UNFAIR AND RACIST THAT MANY MANY NON AMERCIANS WHO CAN’T EVEN SPEAK ENGLISH ARE ALOUD TO BECOME AND BE CITZENS.

WE HAVE TO TO SHOUT AT THE OR LAUGH IF THEY CAN SPEAK ENGLISH YET WHEN WE TRY TO SPEAK ONE OF THE HARDEST LANUAGEST NO ONE SHOWS RESPECT.

lots of people like Penelope cruz pretend they can’t speak english like simple word even though she learnt it YEARS ago and learnt others much harder one sense but still doesn’t know what car means.

and the fact you hate dark people shows how racist japanese are beyonce is not nicole kidman so stop making her japnese ads look like her

DoubleStandard did not link her/his comment to a blog, but I am tempted to send an edited copy of her/his comment back with some suggestions.

I don’t care if readers disagree with me or want to push back. I do care when readers tell me to shut up because this is my blog. I realize that sounds a bit childish, but sometimes I feel childish. If you don’t like what you are reading, please move along.

I won’t clean up a commenter’s comment, but if you’re going to criticize someone else’s ability to speak, read or write English I personally think you, DoubleStandard and others, ought to check for typos.

And generally I haven’t engaged commenters like DoubleStandard, but sometimes I wonder if I should. Would it, could it, make a difference?

Popular.

Being a published writer is a very strange thing indeed. I remember feeling grateful and proud when I saw my first byline, and I remember that More Than Serving Tea didn’t seem real until the first copies arrived at my home. I couldn’t believe someone was going to read what I had written.

But that’s when the fear and doubt really try to settle in and get comfortable. Getting published (or writing a public blog) doesn’t mean anyone is going to read what you wrote. It just means you’ve entered a new kind of crazy, manic, creative, wishful, hopeful, fearful place. Being published doesn’t mean having readers.

Blogging has opened up an entirely new avenue for writers to do just that – write and then hope their words will have readers who not only read what they’ve written but love it. Or at least like it enough. Is there anyone out there who blogs on a public blog and doesn’t want people to read it? You? You write a public blog but you don’t care if anyone reads it? Liar.

😉

We bloggers all have our good days when we write something that we think is funny or thoughtful or thought provoking, and our lovely readers concur. And then we have our bad days when inspiration never strikes or the words aren’t as clever or don’t turn quite right.

I would be lying to you if I told you I didn’t know how many readers I have. It keeps me humble because most days here at More Than Serving Tea it’s a small but faithful bunch. It’s been fun over the two years or so to learn a little more about some of you, and even better to actually meet some of you (Alvin!).

But today (Friday) was not a good day or a bad day. It was weird. I was popular.

I’ve seen surges in my readership, especially when the likes of Scot McKnight or Sojourners crosspost or link to my blog. It is flattering because I respect both blogs and the communities that read those sites, and I’m grateful to have that exposure and mutual respect. And it is dangerous because I see how easily my humility turns false and gratitude for a God-given ability to write wants more than feeling God’s pleasure as I write. I want fame . Or at the very least some blogosphere popularity.

But today the blog stats were beyond anything I had seen, so initially I thought my post on keeping my mouth shut was beyond amazing. I still think I had a pretty good line or two and that the overall post was well-written, but that really wasn’t it. I lucked out and my post made some popularity list that I think is created randomly. I could say that it was a God-thing, and maybe it was. I’m pretty sure in some way it was. I just don’t think it was to make me popular and famous, per se. Popularity, even for one day, can feel like success, and even success is fleeting and misguided because it easily makes me stare at my bellybutton.

Today was a good lesson in popularity because I had it and I was “it”, and, friends, it is the same as it was in high school. Fast, flattering and fleeting. I can only hope that a handful of the many first-time readers (heck, I’d take one) would stick around for the ride to join the ranks of my long-time readers, first-time commenters. But that’s popularity.

I could work hard to try to be witty and write posts with popular tags in popular categories. I could try to be popular, but if today was a God-thing, God was giving me a tiny bit of space for me to think about why I gave a “bleep” about what other people think about my writing before I gave a moment’s thought to whether or not my words communicated integrity, faith, grace, hope and love.

Do I want to be popular first or do I want to be found faithful first?